Archaeologists recreate dung-flavored beer - Brief Article

Modern Brewery Age, Sept 10, 2001

Historians in the Orkney Islands off Northern Scotland have brewed up a neolithic treat--beer flavored with animal dung.

Historians have recreated the recipe after uncovering what they claim is a 5,000-year-old brewery on the remote archipelago.

Merryn Dineley, a Manchester University historian and chief brewer of the ancient liquor, told the weekly paper The Observer that the brew was "quite delicious." The ale is brewed in clay pots with traces of baked animal droppings.

Dineley extrapolated the unusual recipe based on a his findings during a dig conducted in a Neolithic village in the Orkneys. He reported that he examined stone-lined drains running under houses in the village of Skare Brae and found evidence of a kiln for malting grain and traces of a cereal-based fermented alcohol.